Pair plead guilty to ATM scam

Two foreign criminals have pleaded guilty to ripping off tens of thousands of dollars from bank customers in a sophisticated ATM fraud, emailing hundreds of bank account details to accomplices in Europe.

Marcel Cismas, 35, and Alexandru Tudor, 24, will be sentenced next month after trying to steal nearly $60,000 with credit cards cloned from cash machines across the North Shore and Rotorua.

Two accomplices of Cismas and Tudor arrived earlier to attach skimming devices to ANZ and National Bank ATMs in downtown Auckland, Hamilton and Rotorua in December.

Undisclosed tens of thousands of dollars were stolen but the pair, who cannot be named for legal reasons, left the country before their crimes were detected.

A few weeks later in January, Romanians Cismas and Tudor arrived in New Zealand and glued electronic skimming devices to Westpac ATMs in Orewa and Rotorua.

The devices secretly record the bank details of customers by scanning the magnetic stripe of the eftpos card.

These details are then transferred on to a blank card, while a hidden camera trained on the keypad gave Cismas and Tudor the PIN numbers of the cards.

Court documents viewed by the Weekend Herald show the pair then emailed or texted the stolen information to their accomplices in Romania or Milan, Italy.

The crime ring was successful in withdrawing nearly $12,000 from accounts of customers who had used the Westpac ATM in Rotorua - the cards declined on $45,000 of transactions.

The National Bank has refused to reveal how much money was withdrawn from customers who used the ATMs in Orewa, downtown Auckland and Hamilton in December.

All of the cash machines were fitted with skimming security measures, jitter devices which literally shake the card, which supposedly make it harder for cards to be scanned.

Although widespread in Europe, skimming is rare here but police warn it is increasing.



Fellow Romanians Jan Scutariu, 31, and Andrei Raileanu, 24, were convicted in November of stealing almost $35,000 with cloned credit cards from cash machines across Auckland, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty.

Skimming first hit the headlines in New Zealand when another Romanian couple stole more than $100,000 with cards skimmed from Bank of New Zealand ATMs in 2006. The pair skipped the country before the crime was detected.

As a result of the fraud, greensleeve devices were introduced to BNZ ATMs to protect customers' money.

Because skimming is rare in New Zealand, it is cheaper for banks to reimburse customer losses rather than upgrade security measures.

The five main trading banks refuse to reveal the true cost of ATM fraud in New Zealand.

But statistics from Australia show $48 million was stolen from Australian ATMs in the previous financial year.

The magnetic strip technology used by credit cards was the main problem. Most New Zealand banks are now working towards a chip card, which would be more difficult to clone.

HOW SKIMMING WORKS
* A small device is placed over the card slot and a tiny camera above the keypad.
* When the customer inserts a card at the ATM, it is "skimmed" and the account details stored.
* The camera records the PIN.
* The device and camera are later removed and the account data sent overseas via email or text.
* The stolen details are then cloned on to blank credit cards.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR
* Use ATMs under video surveillance or inside a bank foyer/branch.
* Cover the keypad with your hand when entering the PIN.
* Skimming devices stick out a few extra centimetres.
* If an ATM swallows your card, call the bank immediately.
* Don't accept "help" from anyone hanging around the ATM.
* Report suspicious transaction activity on your account.